North Korean models

I just found this video one of my group-mates took that illustrates one of North Korea’s benign oddities — they make amazing scale models of things. Their museums are full of them. This video shows a model train.

I’m not sure the value of showing these models. What do they convey besides model-making skills? I don’t quite get it.

You also hear at the beginning one of our funniest running jokes of the trip. “Leader Kim Jong Il” sounds like “little Kim Jong Il.” We kept hearing “little Kim Jong Il did this … little Kim Jong Il did that,” which made it sound like they were describing his achievements as a baby.

Then when our guide described what we heard as “Inside this train is little Kim Jong Il,” it was too much not to laugh at. Was there a tiny Kim Jong Il inside there?